Bigger Better Tennis - Paul Dale

The Plumber — The Mentality Every Competitive Player Needs By Paul Dale | 3AM Online Tennis Consulting “The Plumber”: A Lesson from Rod Laver’s Ruthless Mentality In the golden age of tennis during the 1960s, Rod Laver was described by his peers as “The Plumber.” He wasn’t flashy. He wasn’t glamorous. But his game was ruthlessly effective. Why? Because when Rod stepped onto the court, he didn’t show off. He didn’t care about applause or aesthetics. He showed up, got the job done , and left as quickly as possible — just like a plumber working beneath the house in the cold, damp, dirty crawlspace. A place nobody wants to be any longer than necessary. He worked where no one could see him — fixing what needed fixing — then vanished. And this is a mindset more tennis players need. The Problem: Hanging Around Too Long In today’s game, too many players linger. They’ve built a lead, have momentum, and can practically see the finish line — yet they hesitate. Why? Because it’s fun. ...

Winning points in tennis is more than just hitting big shots—there are multiple ways to win points, and as a coach, your job is to help your players develop these winning options. Here are five different ways to help your players win points more in competition. 1. Take Time Away from Your Opponent Time is precious for a tennis player, and the less time your opponent has to react, the more pressure they feel. When your opponent is rushed, they are more likely to make errors or poor decisions that you can take advantage of. There are two main ways to take time away from opponents: Play Inside the Court – Encourage your players to step forward over the baseline and take the ball earlier on every opportunity. I call this " Inside Feet ". This reduces the amount of time your opponent has to react to their next shot. Playing inside the baseline also allows you to take control of the point - you're playing proactively while your opponent is forced to react to your shots.  Incre...

"What Will You Work On Today?" — Avoiding the Deaf Ear By Paul Dale | The 3AM Tennis Method In many tennis lessons around the world, the routine is familiar: players show up, coaches deliver instructions, and students follow along. However, this top-down approach often creates a dangerous by-product — players who become passive learners. They nod, they drill, they respond politely, but mentally, they're not invested. They become robots , going through the motions without actual ownership of their development. One powerful phrase can shift that dynamic instantly: "What will you work on today?" It's a simple question, but one that flips the responsibility back onto the player. It invites reflection, focuses attention, and builds accountability. In this blog, I  aim to explore the  "What will you work on?"  approach and provide you  with  practical ways to integrate it into your coaching sessions. Why This Phrase Matters When players aren...

The Blue Elephant: Helping Players Stay Focused When Distraction Strikes (เวอร์ชันไทยด้านล่าง) By Paul Dale | The 3AM Tennis Method In my years working with competitive junior players, one of the most common — and frustrating — challenges I face is helping talented tennis players translate their practice performance into real match results. These players can strike the ball cleanly, move well, and execute drills as well as anyone. But when tournament day comes, something unravels. Their game becomes shaky, inconsistent, and the confidence we thought we’d built seems to vanish. One recent case brought this issue sharply into focus. Meet Kevin: A Case of Potential vs. Performance Kevin was one of those players coaches love to have. Technically solid, smart on the court, and coachable. After working together for a few months, his confidence rose, and his results reflected it — finals in two consecutive tournaments. It felt like we were finally turning a corner. Then came the setbac...

  Coaching Beyond the Obvious By Paul Dale – The 3AM Tennis Method Every coach has been there: watching a player make the same mistake repeatedly, offering correction after correction, trying drills, gimmicks, analogies—only to see the problem stubbornly remain. It’s tempting to think the player just isn’t “getting it.” But what if we’re the ones not seeing it clearly? Years ago, my colleague and mentor, Bernard Gusman, introduced me to a concept that transformed my coaching approach. He called it  “Coaching beyond the obvious.” It’s a phrase that sounds simple, but it holds a profound truth. In tennis coaching, the real issue is often hidden beneath the surface. What we first see as the problem is rarely its root cause. If we settle for addressing only what’s obvious, we risk misdiagnosing the issue entirely and wasting a significant amount of time. A Serve Problem That Wouldn’t Go Away I once worked with a young girl whose serve was falling apart at the most cruci...

  Don't Just Teach the Stroke — Teach the Context Why Every Tennis Lesson Must Link Directly to Match Play When we teach players a new stroke, footwork or tactical pattern, it's easy to fall into the trap of isolating the skill, perfecting the action in a vacuum. The issue? Tennis isn't a closed-skill sport like gymnastics or archery. It's an open-skilled, reactive sport. Success depends not only on how well a player executes a stroke but on when and why they use it. This is where context becomes everything. The Missing Link: Strategic Relevance Too often, players leave a lesson with a technically improved shot but without an  understanding of how or when to use it in a match. They've learned the how , but not the why or the when . We hand them a tool, but without a blueprint for how to use it effectively. The result? Players are left to "bridge the gap" on their own, trying to figure out how the new backhand, serve variation, or rally pattern fi...

When most players first pick up a tennis racquet, what’s the first thing they do? They start swinging Even without a coach, they imitate what they’ve seen on TV or from other players at the club — copying the appearance of a forehand, a serve, or a backhand. This appearance-first learning model has become the default approach across much of the tennis world. The majority of coaches around the world also take their lead from what they see the top players do, appearances, without understanding the fundamentals these top players have honed over years of work. And that’s a problem. The Danger of Appearance-First Learning This imitation approach might seem logical at first — after all, we learn many things by copying what we see. But in tennis, it creates a dangerous foundation. Why? Because tennis is not a closed-skill sport like golf, snooker, or diving, where the environment is predictable, stationary, and repeatable. In those sports, copying a swing or movement pattern can act...